


Numbered

by gigiree, KryallaOrchid, PrincessofHarte



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Blast from the past., F/M, I think I have everyone's permission to post it., Season 2 just came out., The new fans deserve some angst, This was written so long ago., This was written way before the Origins ever came out, when we had no idea how the Miraculous functioned or anything about Master Fu and Nooroo.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-16 13:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree, https://archiveofourown.org/users/KryallaOrchid/pseuds/KryallaOrchid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessofHarte/pseuds/PrincessofHarte
Summary: On May 10th, 2016, an anonymous user asked the Tumblr account imagine-miraculousladybug the following question: "imagine the miraculous users having their days numbered according to the animal/insect their miraculous represents. for example, marinette is expected to die 2-3 years after gaining her miraculous (i'M SORRY [or am i?])"Mod Moon posted the ask, letting it roam free in the fandom wilds. This is what happened.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s always a matter of balance, isn’t it? The universe takes and gives in equal measure, and there is always a price to pay.

But when Paris burns and a hero is needed, Marinette pays it all without question and without much doubt. In the heat of the moment…in the seconds that it takes to see fear searing in her loved one’s eyes, she clips on the dusty red earrings and embraces the red of fate.

There’s a warmth to it all, comforting and supportive. It’s what gives her the strength to shorten her life, and cup a sobbing kwami in a gentle grip after all is peaceful.

“It’s okay. I’m okay, Tikki. Thank you for giving me this gift.”

And she truly means it, even if she will wake up this night, with hitching breaths and a panicked flurry of questions. But she is not alone, because Tikki will comfort her through the night, answering them all with a millenia’s worth of love and care for her hero.

 

* * *

 

Marinette learns the meaning of regret when she meets her partner.

He is dark where she is light. Destruction where she is creation.

But his green eyes are so bright and earnest, it’s almost too easy to fall for his quips and puns. So they play, and she steps in tandem with his leaps and bounds across Paris.

They save they day again and again. Trust each other, again and again.

And then…she finds out who he is.

She wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The fact that her red fate has tied her in ribbons too inextricable to be unlaced. Her red is her luck and her life, and she would give it all up if it meant keeping him safe and happy. This person…her first love, her first choice to run to when the world is turning upside down…they are the same person.

But luck for once is not on her side, when she remembers that the black dots on her earrings mark more than just the time left in her transformation. They mark her lifeline, slowly leeching away into the deep color of a dying sun.

So even when identities are revealed, it is much to her regret that she must keep dancing away from him. She must remain distant, even as she selfishly reaches for him with trembling fingers and a confession wilting in her blooming smiles.

She doesn’t know what to do when he makes a far enough leap and embraces her as he says the thing she fears and wishes for the the most.

_“I love you.”_

* * *

 

She is selfish when she wakes in the night, screaming with muffled sobs into her pillow that she is scared.

She is selfish when she refuses Tikki’s comfort and instead seeks him out to lay all out. Tikki wordlessly, apologetically slips into her place in those red earrings, and Ladybug streaks through her city, moonlight painting her silver and gray in a way that makes her look heartachingly ghostly.

Her sacrifice in black little dots, marking a path that will no longer exists once she fades away. Her decision to save the city she loved, balanced by her life cut short.

His silence is telling. but she returns his confession with her own.

“I love you too…but I’m so scared, Adrien. I’m going to die, and I can’t leave you alone. I’m going to die, and I’m going to leave behind everyone that loves me.”

He doesn’t answer, but his teeth are grit and there are tears that stain his mask impossibly blacker than before. He pulls her tight to him, his sobs weaving themselves into her starlit strands.  

And here, she feels held together. As if she isn’t just a number of dots slowly floating apart to become nothing but a faint memory in the grand scheme of things. She’s strong enough here to be honest with herself.

She clings to him desperately, slim fingers more frail than ever when cries into the crook of his neck.

“Adrien…I’m so scared. I don’t want to die.”

He shakes harder, but still they cling onto each other as the world keeps turning, woefully callous to their plight.

 

* * *

 

“It’s the natural order of things. To have incredible power, a sacrifice must be made. I told you this before you accepted.” Plagg chides, his eyes betraying all the pain of lost Chat Noirs in his time as their guardian.

They all accepted whole heartedly. They all knew the terms. And they all were heroes, every last one.

But Plagg remembers their tears in the middle of the night, the regrets and the memories and each and every one’s last words. It’s the least he can do for the people he loves and kills.

“BUT WHY HER?” Adrien rounds on the kwami floating lazily over his bed. His pacing stops, his hands dig through his already messy hair.

He’s done his research.Read the ancient texts over and over, but the contracts are iron clad. He had accepted his fifteen years with a grace and foolhardiness only youth can impart. Because when you’re sixteen, fifteen years is almost double your life.

It seems okay in the moment.

He hadn’t realized how fast time could pass. He hadn’t realized that he would fall in love with someone who paid a heavier price than he.

And he can’t save her.

It hits him with a finality that is crushing to realize. So he crumbles to the ground in despair, burying his face in his hands and oblivious to a Plagg who curls against him with an age old regret.

 

* * *

 

They decide to live by the moments life gifts them.

Marinette still smiles, but it’s something deeper…much more tender than before.

She tells Alya that she adores her. She tells her parents that she loves them very much as she runs out with a croissant dangling from her mouth, backpack hoisted over a slim shoulder and Tikki flapping undignified inside.

She breaches a truce with Chloe, becomes Lila’s closest friend.

She does things she’s never thought of doing.

She kisses Adrien a lot more now, holds his hand when everyone or no one is watching. She wipes his away his tears when ever the subject of her lifespan comes up.

And he weeps, forcing a smile on his face because he should be the one comforting him.

But his Marinette is strong and brilliant and dying. She laughs whenever she pleases, floats away from his tender caresses whenever the notion strikes her.

She is free, dancing on red ribbons to a place he can’t reach her.

 

* * *

 

“You’re not scared anymore?” He asks one day, very quiet as they sit watching the winking lights below them.

And she merely looks at him with that piercing gaze of hers, starry eyes edged with a smile so melancholy, that he wants to cry again.

A year has passed, and she’s growing weaker. But still she smiles, and he pretends to.

“It’s not that…but you know something…it’s a lot better when I think about everyone I love and who loves me back. ”

He glances at her, shock etched into his expression. Eyes wide behind a mas that does nothing to hide his feelings.

“W-why?” is all he can say in a strained voice.

Her hand moves to cover his over his knee, lacing her trembling fingers through his own.

“I might be selfish. But it’s because I know…I won’t really die…not as long as just one person remembers me. And that’s the best I can do, isn’t it? That’s why we live…to love and be loved. I think…that’s just enough to make life worth living. And to live means to die right?”

And she’s smiling as she explains this, and he may agree at a later time. A year from now when rain falls over a new gravestone, but for now he can’t. For now, he just wants to love and be loved by her. So he presses a hesitant kiss to her waiting lips, his tears running down his cheeks and she can taste the salty sadness of it all.

But acceptance is a part of life, and she’s grateful she’s met him. She can’t regret her choices…not when they’ve led her to this moment where the lights shine bright and the moon smiles. Everything is as clear cut for once, and she leans her head against his shoulder after a breathless, desperate kiss.

“Thank you, Adrien. Please keep living so that when I do see you again, you can tell me so many good stories, okay?” She whispers, but she doesn’t know if he can hear her over his own sobbing.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you, Marinette” He says, as his hand caresses the gray stone. The rain patters on, and he looks at the toes left on the pawprint of his ring with a bittersweet satisfaction.

To live means to die. He hadn’t understood that until now.

But he does, and he lets himself close his eyes for a moment, feel the rain running down the back of his shirt as he lives for the present. There’s lots to do, things to see and stories to write. He wants to build up a library of memories so that when he does see her again, he can smile proudly and say _“ I remembered, and we both lived.”_


	2. Chapter 2

He mourns.

He doesn’t mean to. He promised her he’d keep living. He’d build the library of memories for her, for the both of them. But the night is lonely and the rooftops don’t shine the way they used to. There’s a stillness in his heart and a crack in his smile.

Nino notices and tries, but he doesn’t understand the depth of Adrien’s pain. He thinks its because Marinette is gone and he doesn’t realise that Adrien lost  _ two  _ loves, not just one. Ladybug and Marinette. Two lives lost. Two lives taken before it was time. All of Marinette’s dreams. All of Ladybug’s hope. That’s what was taken the day she ran out of time.

Alya weeps. She doesn’t understand and there’s nothing Adrien can do to make her. The secrets lie heavy in the shattered remains of his heart.

Her parents… her parents…

The bakery closed the day she left. It never reopened.

Plagg understands. He’s the only one who does. He’s lived it all before.

He protects. Hawk Moth is still out there. Still a danger. So Adrien does what he can. Captures the moths and… feeds them to Plagg. Plagg says he’s storing the energy, but… Adrien doesn’t want to think about why. Why would Plagg need to store? Ladybug wasn’t coming back. He was on his own. Forever and into eternity.

Except he’s not.

Ladybug and Chat Noir are intrinsically bound. There cannot be one without the other.

And there she stands. Proud. Ready. Happy. A smile on her face. Blonde hair blowing in the breeze. A joy he hasn’t seen in years.

Its not her. Its not her. It could never be her. It’s a new girl but something tugs inside him.

She smiles and hold out her hand, “Hello. I’m Ladybug, Tikki said–”

The cat will always love the bug and she will always leave him. Nine lives to her one. He’s doomed. And he can’t. He can’t do this again.

He turns away, shoulders slumped, head down, heart already breaking under the strain. “No. You’re not.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

At first, there’s anger.

How  _ dare  _ they? How dare they both? How  _ dare  _ the kwami put another Ladybug before him and expect that he’d partner with her. And watch her grow. And watch her  _ die _ . See another family torn apart. Another life lost.

It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not just!

The pain and frustration is unbearable.

He hates. He’s mean. He ignores Plagg. 

He never lets her get hurt, can’t do it, won’t do it, it’s not her fault, but he’s never nice to her. Not really. He tolerates.

But Tikki chooses her bugs well. The girl is… delightful. Nothing can bring her down. She’s a ray of sunshine in his dark place. She inches her way in.

He grows to… love. Even the word leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He loves. He is not in love, but he loves his friend. His partner. Because she is bright and light and happiness and nothing, not even knowing her time on this Earth is limited, prevents the happiness that shines from her. She takes so much joy in the little things. The flowers. The moon. The stars.  Him.

He learns she was already doomed. She knew, when she took up the earrings that her time was limited. She was already dying. Cancer, she said. And yes, she was sad, but the earrings… they gave her strength. Helped her live, day by day, gave her a little longer with her family. Gave her an absolute, instead of a linger.

If she could do some good in this world before she goes, that’s all she ever wanted. 

And she does good. She teaches him, so many different things, but she teaches him a short life is okay, as long as its a Miraculous one. Find happiness in the moments. Share the happiness. Live, like every day is his last.

It’s not like Marinette. There will never  _ be  _ another Marinette. Not for Adrien. This girl… she is a wonder but they could offer up all the bugs in the world and it wouldn’t replace Marinette. But… he loves this little bug. 

This little firefly. 

Her light goes out far too soon. 


	4. Chapter 4

There’s always a light in the darkness. There’s always a little bit of hope left at the bottom of the glass.

He isn’t very old by the time he follows that light, tips that glass for that last drop.

It’s the eighth Ladybug that sees him leave. She is a young, earnest girl, eight years his junior. But she tries so hard, with wide brown eyes and a crooked smile. Except it’s almost comical the way it’s slipping off her face.

Balance settles within him, a realization shifting pleasantly into place as he makes a trade.

He doesn’t have a lot of time left anyway. Just like the first and the second and the others.

So it’s not too much of a blow to him when he takes the blade for her, gripping onto the hilt with trembling claws. He can barely speak, but he manages to tell her this.

“L-live, kid. When you’re d-done here, go fall in love, write a book, get out of the city.” 

“C-chat, what are you …I can’t ….not without you. I’m dying anyway. S-so why… **why** ?!” 

His grin is brilliant, even as it drips red and he falls to his knees. And he will adamantly insist on her finishing off Hawk Moth before any attention is paid to him. He’s the black cat after all, he can afford to barter with one of his nine lives.

And she does. She defeats Hawk Moth and purifies the last akuma. It’s all a haze of colorful impressions and light seen through half lidded eyes. But in what seems like a few minutes, she’s by his side again, cradling him as the transformation wears off and she is sobbing.

“W-why?” Is all she can ask, and he remembers asking Marinette the same thing.

“Because I lived, and now it’s your turn.” 

And he follows the red trailing ribbons he sees behind his closed eyes,  leaving  Plagg with the task of explaining why this Ladybug would get to live a few years more. He’s a little relieved he won’t have to see her leave before him and a little regretful why he hadn’t thought of this before, but there’s not much time for regrets.

Not when he’s going to see her soon and he’s got lots of stories he needs to tell, some sad and some happy. He needs to tell her -

“I remembered and we both lived.”

And that made all the difference.


	5. Chapter 5

Master Fu knows his long life is at an end. When he was first given his Miraculous, when he first found Wayzz, he was promised 200 years. As a young boy of 14 living in a poor village in China, 200 years was infinity.

He was thirty when he became the Guardian of the Box. He was thirty when he experienced his first death from a Black Cat. He was thirty when he cried out in horror at the dead body on his floor. In the span of 200 years, thirty is nothing. For someone who only lived thirty years though, that life was everything. Fu was happily married once with four kids of his own. He was thirty when he met a girl in red, calling herself Ladybug, only to find out three years later that it was his only daughter. Her replacement came in the form of her still-grieving mother. After she died, feeling completely betrayed by the Kwami, Fu took the boys to his sister’s house and left them, unable to bear to see his family die on him.

It would be forty years before he ever saw one of his sons again. Turns out, this would be his only son left alone by the Kwami. His first son became Black Cat after the first died on his doorstep. The second, only four at the time of his mother’s death, would become Black Cat when he was 11. The third son was too young to ever be Black Cat, and then too old.

He tried running from his life, running from his duty to shepherd the box and guide the heroes, but Ladybugs, Black Cats, Foxes, Bees, Butterflies, and Peacocks would always find him. It was fate that he would be entwined with them. It was fate he would find them as they died. It was fate that a certain Peacock would find him hidden away in the mountains, claiming a great terror was upon the city of Paris, that a Butterfly found out how to live beyond the one year granted to him.

Reluctantly, Fu went with the Peacock to Paris, only to have her die a month after he arrived. Fu was alone in a city whose language he didn’t even speak. At night, he would see them, the banes of his existence, Ladybug and Chat Noir. _No, not them_ , he would remind himself. The Ladybugs and Black Cats he knew were long dead, as was the rest of his family. Over 100 years had passed, and his family was either dead or trapped in what once was the country known as China.

When he sees her, he sees her youth, her joy. His heart clenches because she hasn’t yet realized what she’s traded the rest of her life away for.

When he sees him, he sees the love he has for her, that neither of them have yet to realize what they have done.

At the age of 189, Master Fu transforms for the first time in decades, seeking the boy whose heart he knows is broken. Ladybug hasn’t been in the news recently, and a nearby bakery closed with no warning, the owners gone. In the night, he finds the Cat. Just as he suspected, Chat Noir mourns at the house above the recently closed bakery.

Master Fu can only watch. Hundreds of Miraculous users have died under his tenure. Each time, he could only watch, unable to figure out how the one doing the mourning would react. Most of the time, they blame him. Sometimes, they get up and leave, ignoring his presence entirely. With the Black Cats, he found they tended to lean more toward violence to resolve their emotions.

This one, Chat Noir, doesn’t. Even with his heightened hearing, he doesn’t acknowledge the presence of another being. “I’m sorry, Marinette,” he mutters. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

An hour passes, then two, before the boy stands, his head turning to the Guardian. “We were too young. We were only 15. She was 18 and had everything ahead of her. We were too young.”

Somber, Master Fu rests a hand on the boy’s arm. He doesn’t have the words to say. He was too young too, but with 175 years granted to him by his Kwami, he has no right to speak about being too young. Reflecting on his life, he says, “We live to love and be loved, and that makes life worth living.”

Chat Noir flinches, his eyes welling with tears. He doesn’t let them fall, just nodding before retreating. Master Fu lets him. This is the routine they repeat every three years until one black night. It makes sense that Chat Noir’s final moments are in darkness. Master Fu stands with the mourning Ladybug, two bodies at their feet. Hawk Moth’s reign over the lives of others is over. Nooroo flutters listlessly above his Miraculous, obviously exhausted. Plagg floats above his ring. In the darkness, the two strangers look related, but Master Fu knows the boy’s father, the previous Peacock’s husband. Knowing his entire family is gone will destroy him.

Master Fu extends a hand to the Ladybug. To live is to die, isn’t it? To love is to live. “And he lived.”

The weeping girl glances up at the old man, startled.

“Come with me,” he tells her. They leave the bodies behind, taking the Miraculouses, but not before they leave an anonymous tip with the police. He leads her to his shop and detransforms. His bones creak and he knows his time is soon. Less than a year. Master Fu is 213 years old and he is tired.

“I want you to take what Chat Noir said and be free. You’re young, and you don’t know what you’ve done, but these next two years must be your absolute best, for everyone involved.” He coughs, his old lungs not working like they used to when he first came to Paris. Opening the gramophone, he pulls out the box, handing it to the girl.

“I am dying.” He doesn’t beat around the bush. “I need you to protect this until the next Chat Noir can give it to the next Turtle.” This is the cycle that they agreed to, though they were all young and reckless and immature and ignorant. He hates that he has to force this on another child, that he has to force someone to live beyond their family’s lives, but it must be done to keep balance in the world. “Please, Ladybug.”

The girl nods as Master Fu places the two Miraculouses by the Fox’s Miraculous. With a minute of hesitation, he takes off his own. “When the Kwami awaken, let them leave. And please, live.”

Six months later, local masseuse and healer Shifu Fu is found dead in his home, the prognosis of old age. There’s even a picture of his smiling face, finally at peace, no longer cursed with life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so this is the end. We wrote this over the course of a week. Everything was spontaneous. We had no plan and we had no knowledge about the Miraculous or the history behind it. Perhaps, sometime in the future, I'll add another chapter and break your hearts once more. Thank you, everyone, for your wonderful comments. Please, keep on reading and supporting content creators.  
> \--PoH


End file.
